The Reality of Business
Welcome to The Reality of Business with Bob & Jeremy, your go-to podcast for insights, stories, and practical advice on all things business.
Since meeting at drama school in 1991, we've been lifelong friends and business partners, drawing on over two decades of experience running a successful sales and management training company together. With Reality Training at the heart of our journey, we've coached thousands, spoken at countless conferences, and travelled the world, gathering a treasure trove of stories, insights, and actionable advice along the way.
Originally launched during the lockdown of June 2021 as Bob & Jeremy’s Conflab, this podcast has evolved into The Reality of Business. Each episode offers a blend of thought-provoking discussions on the most pressing business topics, light-hearted banter, and real-world wisdom to help you think differently and make positive changes in your professional life.
Whether you’re listening as you multitask at work, relaxing at home, or on the move, we've crafted every episode to bring value, a fresh perspective, and a smile to your face. Tune in to discover what you didn't know about the world of business and beyond.
We proudly work with organisations of all sizes, from global corporations to ambitious start-ups, through our company, Reality Training – www.realitytraining.com.
The Reality of Business features original music by Charlie Morrell.
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The Reality of Business
Beginner's Guide to AI: The Evolution & Impact of Artificial Intelligence for Business
This introduction is written by an AI bot provided by the podcast broadcaster. The description is edited slightly but it saves an hour of work every time a new episode is published. Bob Morrell and Jeremy Blake unravel the intriguing evolution of artificial intelligence, from its mythological origins to today’s cutting-edge innovations. You'll learn how ancient legends, like medieval golems and modern cinematic portrayals like Ex Machina, have shaped humanity's understanding of AI. With humorous anecdotes and personal stories, your hosts simplify complex concepts such as reasoning, algorithms, and neural networks.
The journey through history highlights the contributions of early thinkers including Aristotle and Alan Turing, whose pioneering work laid the groundwork for AI as an academic discipline. Let's explore the advantages AI brings to business, from boosting productivity and improving user experiences to offering strategic competitive advantages. However, let's not shy away from discussing AI’s limitations, especially in capturing human nuance, emotion, and creativity. By referencing popular culture and sharing personal experiences, this podcast makes these sophisticated topics easily accessible and enjoyable.
Finally, let's find out how AI can transform business strategy, using real-world examples to illustrate its practical applications. From automating processes and decisions to enhancing marketing strategies and website improvements, AI's potential seems limitless. But there are potential pitfalls, including inherent biases and the challenge of mimicking human conditions like ADHD. Whether you’re a business leader or just AI-curious, this episode promises to equip you with invaluable insights to navigate the ever-changing landscape of AI from a layman's perspective, all while understanding its fascinating quirks and limitations.
Bob and Jeremy's new book, Whose Side Are You On? Disloyal Bonding and Strategic Lies, is released on 1st October 2024. Pre-order your copy now on Amazon.co.uk!
For more info, free resources, useful content, & our blog posts, please visit realitytraining.com.
Reality Training - Selling Certainty
Welcome to the next episode of the Reality of Business. I'm Bobby Murrell, one of your guides through the ever-evolving landscape of business, and joining me today is the man who once tried to program his coffee maker to work out his tax bill.
Speaker 2:Jeremy Blake. Hey, bobby, it almost worked too, until I ended up with a refund in coffee beans.
Speaker 1:Today we're diving into the fascinating world of artificial intelligence. That's right, dear listeners. Ai, the thing that powers everything, from your phone's autocorrect to that uncanny ad that knows you need new socks before you do.
Speaker 2:AI is like the office assistant who never sleeps, never takes a coffee break and won't eat your lunch from the fridge. Well, usually.
Speaker 1:But like any good assistant, AI has its quirks. Imagine an assistant who sometimes sends your emails in Klingon or decides your meeting room should be a broom closet. Ai can be a bit unpredictable.
Speaker 2:Sounds about right. So today we're going to take you on a journey through the history of AI, its advantages and disadvantages, and share some examples, including our first experience with ChatGPT.
Speaker 1:Exactly. We'll start by tracing AI's origins, from its humble beginnings to the powerful tools we have today. Then we'll explore the pros, like boosting sales and streamlining operations, and the cons, like the occasional tech-induced chaos.
Speaker 2:And trust me, folks, it's not all chat and robotic overlords, Although I did once ask ChatGTP for a joke and it told me to brace myself for algorithmic humor.
Speaker 1:Which I've always thought your humor was, Jeremy. If I'm honest, We'll also share some stories from our first uses of ChatGPT, including writing this very introduction Wow, we're doing the robot's bidding by using it.
Speaker 2:So whether you're a tech geek ready to embrace our robot future, or someone who still uses a fax machine, yes, stay tuned. We promise to make AI as fun and simple as explaining it to your grandma or your grandpa.
Speaker 1:Grab your cup of coffee, sit back and let's unravel the magic and madness of AI in business. By the end of this episode, you might even be inspired to get your toaster to start taking your breakfast orders.
Speaker 2:Now, that's a future worth waiting for. Let's get started. Cue the music.
Speaker 1:Well, welcome to the reality of business. And the more observant amongst you will probably have worked out that that introduction all about this episode and AI was written by ChatGPT. So, for those of you who don't know, I'm Bobby Murrell and I'm Jeremy Blake, and today we're going to focus in on AI and I think in some ways it's a bit of a layman's introduction to AI, because we know lots of organizations who are embracing this new technology and running with it and there are some who aren't touching it at all. There are some who aren't touching it at all. So we thought if we could do an episode where we focused in on what AI actually is and what are some of its advantages and disadvantages and what you can really use it for, then that's going to help everyone understand it more and also point out some of the things they could be using it for.
Speaker 1:And, of course, a lot of these things which you can find online right now, like ChatGPT, are entirely free, and I think that's the really fascinating thing about it. There are free bits of software which you can use right now. That will really make a difference. Free for now, yes, indeed, and I think as it becomes more useful. That's an interesting question whether people will start charging for things like that. There is, of course, a mountain of AI software that you can purchase, use, install and run with, and that's only going to grow as time goes on.
Speaker 2:I mean, I should say, before we get into what your discoveries and I'm excited about what you're going to share For me, ai hit its peak in 2001. And why do I say that? Because, of course, film fans amongst you will know, spielberg produced in 2001 that rather marvellous film called Artificial Intelligence, which focused on a child and a boy being the embodiment of an artificial intelligent being that could replicate the son of the professor played by William Hurt which I love I find the film still very moving, but maybe that will be where AI gets to.
Speaker 2:It will become part of beings that we'll interact with.
Speaker 1:But well, that's, that's fascinating. I'm really interested that you found that out, because that absolutely is the subject of the first part of of this podcast, because I've done a bit of research into the history of ai, right. So before I launch into that, how far back in history do you think we need to go before we come across a story that relates to AI? How many you know? Where do you think we're going to in history where we can start really talking about AI as a subject?
Speaker 2:great question. I'm going to plump, for I reckon they're going to be playing with it around the second world war period.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's a really good guess, and of course, the 20th century is where the modern version of ai and the outputs of that research begins. But we're going back much further, are we really?
Speaker 2:oh yeah, okay, give me a moment. Okay, I'm tempted, because I'm interested in film, to go back to it, having a play with film and misinformation. So I'm going to go for 1890.
Speaker 1:What's lovely about you, jeremy, is that you're very much a sort of Victorian era onward person. I think so you're telling me we're going back further.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh way, way, way further. But hang on a minute, it depends on the definition. Person, I think. So you're telling me we're going back further. Yeah, oh way, way, way further. But hang on a minute, it depends on the definition. If you're talking about the creation of artificial intelligence or the, the, the perception, are you?
Speaker 1:talking about the perception of artificial intelligence, okay, okay, so the term beings beings from outer space?
Speaker 1:Not quite, but I suppose it could have that connection. I've looked at the history of AI and, of course, ai is artificial intelligence, or I think another way to think about it is a robot, a mechanical machine that has the intelligence of a human. That's what we're looking at here, okay, and one of the earliest examples of this is actually found in Greek mythology. We're going back 1500, 2000 BC, so we're going back about 4,000 years. Okay, bearing in mind that there's only been writing for about six and a half thousand years, it's quite extraordinary that you've suddenly got this idea that we are thinking about a metal humanoid character. In this instance, it was called Talos. Talos was a giant constructed of bronze and he was a guardian of the island of Crete, and the story was that he would throw boulders at invading ships and he would walk around the entire island three times a day to protect it from invaders. Okay, that's a greek myth of a bronze statue that could think and feel and do things under instruction and did.
Speaker 2:Did in the story. In the story because I know quite a bit of greek mythology but I don't know, that was he built by man.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the interesting thing. So Jason, jason and the Argonauts they were attacked by Talos and to defeat him they removed a plug which was near his foot and out of that hole in his foot poured this stuff called ichor, i-c-h-o-r ichor, which was also the blood of the Greek gods, and that rendered the bronze machine inanimate. So the idea was that this ichor gave the metal structure characteristics of a human being, because it was given by the gods.
Speaker 2:But it had the power of the gods, so it was almost like a half being, because there's also that in mythology which they're playing with now in lovely films for kids, about children of half Greek God and half woman and all that stuff. Ah, yes, okay.
Speaker 1:I'd never have guessed that. Well, there we go into ancient times. We've always had this idea that wouldn't it be great if we could create something that had a brain that could actually do stuff that would be useful and handy. I mean, we don't need to do it. Okay, now that is going to be a theme of this podcast. What is it that ai does? That takes away the task from us. It means we don't have to do it. That is the fundamental thing which backs it all up. I love the idea of jason and the argonauts coming ashore fighting this huge, great bronze thing and then realizing, if they just pull a plug from his foot, uh he, he doesn't move anymore, but it, you know, it's a bizarre thing to to consider that was his achilles heel. Uh, well, yes, he.
Speaker 2:That's a very great illusion, and only medieval scholars or ancient scholars, oh, I think reference most of us know about being dipped in the sticks marvelous so then we come forward.
Speaker 1:So how much further do you think we're coming forward from ancient greece? Where do you think we're coming to now, the next stage in the history of ai?
Speaker 2:I have to check your sources. I mean, is this one website or one person? Who's got off on this?
Speaker 1:I don't think you need to go down that road at all. I've done a very easy to find research.
Speaker 2:I like the idea of the Greeks. But then you're saying there's a sort of downtime where people are having a rollies and not thinking about it, and then we're coming back to a period where it starts again. Are you you want me to pick? A time period where a significant thing on a timeline that is the embodiment of AI.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think we've got to stick with this idea of a human functioning. Okay, I'll tell you where I'm going Off the top of my head.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go to warfare, misdirection, that sort of stuff. But I'm trying to think of what war. But I may be completely off.
Speaker 1:It war, but I may be completely off. It's not that it's okay, it's much simpler. So what this does, if you go to medieval times, especially in europe, we had the idea of a golem okay, not golem as in the lord of the rings, but a golem g-o-l-e-m. It's a germanic word what that is is a being that's created mechanically, and another version of this is a word we haven't used in this podcast for a long time a homunculus beautiful, which is a being created in a jar without frankenstein.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely frankenstein's monster that was the next stage is frankenstein frankenstein's idea yes, the idea of creating something which has the ability to think, but not the emotional connection. You then bring it to frankenstein. So the whole point of frankenstein's monster is that it is a man brought back to life, but because it's been artificially created, it doesn't understand love.
Speaker 2:However, as shelly wrote it does. That's the twist. It as Shelley wrote it does. That's the twist. It wants it, it craves it it craves it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely right, and in fact, you mentioned the film earlier. There's another film which is more recent than that, which you must have seen. Poor Things, no, no, I was thinking of Ex Machina.
Speaker 2:Oh gosh, yes, Horrendous, horrendous.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Now, there you've got this idea of this chap creating these beautiful robots with artificial intelligence, and they're, you know, the sort of perfect constructions of a movable machine, and yet there is not that emotional connection.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's a stereotype of lack of empathy, isn't it? It's a trope used in fiction as well, and most recently I didn't watch it, but, uh, some of my family watched it on our family holiday on the plane. Uh, poor things, which emma stone won an oscar for. She is a reanimated being who's saved through inputting artificial intelligence, lacks empathy and goes on these weird quests. I haven't seen it, so can't fully comment okay.
Speaker 1:So then we sort of bring this idea in terms of what ai really is. It's actually a kind of formalization of reasoning. So you have a thing which is a machine that you've created in some form, and what you do is you give it a sequence of elements which allows it to reason on various subjects. Now I've got some more on this.
Speaker 1:So AI is based on the assumption that the process of human thought can be mechanized. Okay, now, interestingly, going back a bit again, aristotle actually considered the idea in some of his writings. He thought that there was a way that you could mechanize thought. Okay, because of the way that it worked and there was a chap called Ramon Lul, from Spain, 1232 to 1315. 15 he actually started creating logical machines that combine basic and undeniable truths with a simple logic. Okay, and he had to be very careful because in doing this it was going against a lot of religious perspectives at the time you can imagine the catholic church wouldn't have been very happy about that.
Speaker 1:So but if you combine that idea, if here are some undeniable truths, here is simple logic. If we combine those, can this sequence of cogs or whatever it may be come up with an output, an output exactly yeah. So then you come slightly further forward, 17th century.
Speaker 1:You've got thomas hobbes and renee descartes oh descartes yeah I knew you, I knew you'd love a french uh, yeah, you love a bit of that. And they came up with this idea that all rational thought could be made systematic with algebra and geometry. So if you use algebra and geometry as your basis, then rational thought can be made to be that too what's interesting about those chaps who I know a little about from my interest in Florence's A-levels?
Speaker 2:quite weird. The early philosophers dabbled massively in maths and physics because they believed that you could only get reason in a mathematical precision. So they struggled to just be fully philosophical without some grounding in science.
Speaker 1:Well, that's Sir Isaac Newton, of course. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, that's that same kind of principle. So we now arrive in the 20th century, and what you're getting in the 20th century is formalizing maths so it can be used to arrive at different solutions. And, of course, one of the great friends of our podcast, someone we've spoken about a few times, alan Turing, was one of the great friends of our podcast, someone we've spoken about a few times. Alan turing was one of the major actors in all of this, and in 1941 he was actually thinking about this during the war, working at bletchley park, which is a place that I know we'd urge listeners to go and visit. He was the first person to seriously investigate the theoretical possibility of machine intelligence. Yeah, and that was in 41. The actual academic discipline of ai emerged in 1956, and it's been an academic discipline ever since, but it wouldn't have been anything without alan turing. So did he coin machine learning, as they say that? I haven't got that as a note. He may well have done, but he was definitely one of the major proponents of this. That's great.
Speaker 1:So then we look at what are the different elements that make up AI. Well, there are things like reasoning, which we mentioned. How does a machine reason something? Well, of course, it uses something that we all understand from social media algorithms. So algorithms work out where you're going to be, how you're going to be there, why have you looked at that product, why have you looked at this? And the internet is very good at studying algorithms and working out what we may or not be interested in. So then you have neural networks. So neural networks are the brain and how one thought might pass to another element to arrive at a point. And what they did was create machines with weights, knowing that when a neural thought went in a different direction, it would use different levels and engage different amounts of weight to then allow it to go further on. And I like the idea of weights because you and I know that when decisions need to be made, we weight different elements of that process in our brain.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's good Waiting waiting.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Then of course, there's all the stuff around language. So where does AI and language connect? And of course, if you go to Japan, there's plenty of robots which respond to language and understand language and get that element of it. Then of course, there is logic itself, and logic is very difficult to program, and one great thinker made the point that human beings understand logic. We know what it is but bizarrely, we rarely use it to solve problems, and I think that's really interesting. If you look at major problems in the world many of us you know, you and I've had discussions in the past about things that happen and you go well, surely can't they see that logically, this must happen because blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:Well, that comes back to other podcasts and things we've done where we use a heuristic, we use a shortcut to determine that lots are based on previous experience. We won't necessarily use logic each time We'll go. I think it's one of these.
Speaker 1:Whereas what you have with AI is this idea that, look, this is the logic, here are all the various neural networks and the weights, here is the language, here is the reasoning. By using that, we can use it to solve problems. Now, the other thing which you can do is program biases, because this is something you and I do a lot on, which is surely an AI solution won't be biased. But there's this kind of a caveat there, because if your AI system is created by a human, which of course it is, then quite often there is an inherent bias within that creation.
Speaker 2:Well, here's a question. It might be coming a bit early and I know we've got sections. Well, here's a question. It might be coming a bit early and I know we've got sections, so you don't just program it and it works.
Speaker 1:You create this network which allows the machine to go? Yes, let me take that question and do something with it.
Speaker 2:It can make different connections that we may not make Absolutely right. Okay, so the information has been there, but it might make connections that a human might take longer to reach or may never reach.
Speaker 1:Well, I think the speed is the thing which we'll come on to. But just to summarize this section, in the last 20 years, of course, we've now created AI applications that are being used. For many years now. They've been used behind the scenes in things like banking and doing predictive stuff and that sort of thing, and from 2011 onwards, ai has been used to manage big data, learning, trends and things like that, and, of course, we know all about algorithms and how that all works on the internet. And then what you've actually got from 2022 onwards only a couple of years is the emergence of these large language models like chat, gpt, which then becomes a user-friendly interface for people to engage with the technology. So that is the history of AI. It starts in ancient Greece, it comes through the medieval era, we have these really fantastic people researching this and understanding the kind of concept of it, and then geniuses like Alan Turing showing us the pathway to actually bringing these different elements together and making it something usable, absolutely fascinating, great, lovely start.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. So what we're?
Speaker 1:going to do is we're going to take a short break and when we come back we're going to look at what are the advantages of AI, what are the disadvantages of AI, and we're going to share with you some of our experiences of using ChatGPT for the first time.
Speaker 3:You're listening to the reality of business brought to you by Reality Training. Selling Certainty. We're a leading sales training and coaching company based in the UK. For information on how we help our clients improve their businesses, check out our website, realitytrainingcom.
Speaker 2:Welcome back. Let's get into some more AI. So, bobby, you want to put forward to me, for my brain as the listener, the advantages and disadvantages of AI. Is that where we're going?
Speaker 1:now, absolutely Now. Ai has a number of different ways that it gives you an advantage. So the broad headings for these there's broadly two things operational effectiveness and offering strategic competitive advantage. Okay, offering strategic competitive advantage okay, but I would say that the fundamental one thing that underpins everything here is time, is money. If you think about the time we spend as humans on tasks and activities and all that sort of thing, this is going to change that, no question. So one advantage it is a productivity enab. You can automate a business process and improve the time it takes. Number one, no question. Number two enhance a user and customer experience by speeding up that process and making it quicker and more enjoyable.
Speaker 1:What it can do, which I think is very interesting, is that sometimes you'll have businesses which have got problems that they never seem to be able to solve, and I think there's a number of ai applications that will allow you to solve that business problem permanently. We've never been able to do such and such. Click a button, that problem's now solved, wow, okay, that's significant. And then, lastly, you can identify and improve strategies for competitive advantage using AI to do that work for you. So let's go into that in slightly more detail so AI can deliver insights that drive value. So it could say something like your website isn't very user-friendly compared to others.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, that's worth knowing and just to check. Does it do this because it checks a number of websites and makes that determination?
Speaker 1:I think it must learn what are the characteristics that make something effective, and if you haven't got it, it's going to tell you that.
Speaker 2:Perhaps because it's got other data of Google rankings and it says you're lower ranked and so it makes determinations yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:Now it will automate processes. So that's something which, if you've got something which is a manual thing that you've done for years, ai can probably automate it. You won't have to do it anymore. The interesting one is it can also automate decisions. Now I find that interesting that you know we have things we want to decide to do?
Speaker 2:do you mean order them? What do you mean by automate?
Speaker 1:so what you can do is you can say every week we need to decide whether we are going to pay our payroll on a friday at five o'clock based on these choices. And a senior person might sit down on a friday and look at all the money coming in and the money going out and all that sort of thing and, and you know, worry about that. But actually the ai can probably go boom, boom, boom, yeah, fine, okay, no, it's all there, we off, we go. So you can actually remove yourself from that task automate decision making yes and the ui goes pay those people.
Speaker 1:What you're actually saying is abdicate decision making. Well, you are. You're also thinking well, my time is more valuable. Yes to for evaluation, exactly. So what you're doing is just taking that task away from yourself. Now, what that does, of course, is increase, but I'm going to add into that what you can also do is that you can use AI. It can be trained to use unbiased data, which means that what it will do when it makes decisions, it will create more equitable choices. It will create more equitable choices. So, whereas you or I might look at a decision and have a bias in some form using that AI system, it will go.
Speaker 1:no, this is the right decision and this is a fair way of doing it, and I think that's actually quite interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, that's very exciting because that means it might ultimately enable people who cannot make different decisions and head down different paths to have to make them. Or their positions become untenable because they're unable to listen.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's an amazing difference, I think. Now there's a few other things. It's faster, so you'll get faster results, and you and I did a project a few years ago where we asked a team of people from the company to examine competitors web offerings. Okay, we can now do that in seconds using ai. No, we don't need to do that anymore. Okay, that's days and days and days. You can, of course, check it.
Speaker 2:Surely you'd probably want to, you know, you'd probably want to check some of it and have some visual representation, because I think the other point to make to listeners from my very limited experience yours is more, of course is you're sent back language and text. You're not given visuals.
Speaker 1:Well, that's just one thing we've looked at, jeremy. There's lots of other software you can get which I'm sure would give you that Produces other things, absolutely. So a few other little benefits are AI operates 24-7. So if it's doing a task for you, then you can get it doing that all the time. Now, one example of this is you can have chatbots on your website having conversations with customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so there is no downtime. Now, that is a really interesting usage, usage which I think we should think about. What it does do over time is it decreases human error, because it's not a human that's doing it, it is a machine that is doing this as well.
Speaker 2:So you're not going to have human doesn't need a break, a coffee, a walk, yoga pilates.
Speaker 1:It doesn't get ill and it doesn't die. Doesn't miss days, work, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, I've employed ai.
Speaker 1:What's it cost you? Oh, it's cost me ten thousand a year. Mind you, the human was a bit more. Oh yeah, so that's quite interesting, and it diverts you from repetitive tasks so you can concentrate on more creative tasks, and we'll come on to that. That's a disadvantage in a minute. The other thing it will do is it will acquire data for you and analyze it for you, but the key thing here is that AI for this sort of thing is reliant on the quality of data. You can use AI to have better quality data, and it will spot and fill in gaps for you. It'll look at anomalies and inaccuracies and it'll fix them too, but data quality suddenly becomes very, very, very essential. So those are the main advantages of AI. It's pretty good, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It is pretty good. But I'm hoping and I'm sure some listeners who put things on their Facebook page like I was hoping I could be a poet and an artist rather than AI, I was hoping AI would clean the dishes. You know, you see quite a lot of that humor humorous but also humorless comments being made about AI. So I think for people who are struggling, maybe concrete disadvantages now rather than just emotional feelings.
Speaker 1:Well, okay. Well, there's some key disadvantages. You know, if you're going to be using this a lot for certain solutions, you are going to have a costly implementation. So if you've got a large organization and you think we are going to bring in an AI system to do all this stuff for us that human beings were previously doing, that's costly, that's going to cost a lot of money in lots of ways. Now, another disadvantage is you could have job losses here, because some of these systems will do the job of a human for much less and, in some cases, much better. There was an old woody allen joke where he says my father retired after 50 years doing the same job uh, just, um, sitting there, uh, making things in a factory uh, for 50 years. And then they replaced him overnight with a machine that did everything my father did, only did it much better. The sad thing was the next day my mother ran out and bought one only did it much better. The sad thing was the next day my mother ran out and bought one Nice punchline Because.
Speaker 1:I didn't see that coming, that's nice.
Speaker 2:Well, I can just come in there. There's been quite a lot of press in some of the North American magazines like Inc and Fast Company and stuff about tills. I don't know what the other word is. You know, when you go to a supermarket and you flip yourself, they often fail. A number of supermarkets in the US removed people from running checkouts and the evidence was that people who lived on their own and were over 70 liked to chat to the people because they met them, they knew them. They removed that conversation. That was very, very damaging, and so they actually went to supermarkets that had people on tills to chat to. So they reinstalled them.
Speaker 2:So is that ai is?
Speaker 1:a till ai.
Speaker 1:I suppose it must be to some degree but, I think I would say it's only ai, if it's a bit like minority report, when, when you walk out of the thing and it and it chooses that you've it welcomes you back or yeah, you know, does that sort of thing. Now there, what we're getting towards here is one of the real disadvantages. Here there is a lack of emotion and creativity. You can ask your ai system to write something for you, to create it for you, but it doesn't have that yet. It doesn't have that yet. It doesn't have that human creative element. No, exactly, exactly, and I think whether this will change or not again is another matter.
Speaker 1:Right now, ai can't learn from experience or mistakes. Oh, really, I think so. They don't think it. If a machine did the same job for 10 years, it wouldn't go well. What I've learned over the last 10 years is I now know to do it like that. I don't think it would have that consultative aspect applied to it, and if it made a mistake, I think, unless you pointed that out, it would continue to make the mistake, because in the end, it is a machine. Still, it doesn't have a kind of personality that goes oh, maybe I'll do it differently. There are other disadvantages, but they're mostly around this idea that it's expensive and it's also transitionally emotionally tough because you might have departments of people who are paid to do something which the machine will do in moments.
Speaker 2:Well, if we just come back into this section, so back to Alan Turing again. He invented a thing or it was named in his honor called the Turing test, which is, if a machine can convince a human it's not a machine, then we've reached a point where AI, then we've reached a point where AI is equal to us.
Speaker 2:So far, no one's passed the Turing test and some of the apps that have tried to do it and I think of I won't mention who it is, but a dear relative of mine has been on various dating apps and he's discovered AI is in the dating apps.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, I found that out too.
Speaker 2:And you found that out too Well, this is my bro, not that he listens, listens. He might start listening until I.
Speaker 1:I was on one last year where there was a woman who her pictures were ai generated right.
Speaker 2:Well, worse than that. Simon was talking to a woman who said she was in oxford and he got a response about going. I like doing lots of things. It just sounded odd, so I said ask her about her favorite part of oxford, because we both know oxford extremely well. If she could name a geographical spot.
Speaker 2:We'd know what she went and she came back saying I like both the busy areas and the quiet areas went right. What's? This so that was a company that took money from you for the amount of interactions you had, but the ai was crap, so that failed the train test and he came off that website brilliant.
Speaker 1:well, there we are, so, but then, if you think about it, that's something as relatively trite as a dating app, which you know is utilizing this technology, and it's an interesting one because it's it's also using our human behaviors for advantage, and I think that's an interesting point.
Speaker 2:Well, that's getting very interesting. So I think of films. So there was the other film Again. Often they're short stories by L Ron Hubbard or they're short stories by Clark. A lot of the AI work in fiction is now getting closer, but there's a Willith film where these droids come out. Do you know the film I mean? And the droids create an upgrade of themselves. An upgrade of the droids is created like these robots, okay, and they try to kill all the other robots and then take over and the head droid convinces someone that this is all masterminded by a human.
Speaker 2:But it's not. It's masterminded by the droids. That's a great film with Will Smith. I have to search it just because listeners might want to see it.
Speaker 1:Well, of course you know, if you look at the Terminator, it's all about that. You know the fact that the world is taken over by computers and tries to wipe out humanity. I mean, that's the worst case scenario.
Speaker 2:It's called iRobot and that's probably a short story. Isaac Asimov, that's who I'm thinking of. It's based on a book by Asimov which he wrote in 1950. You see, you talk about your timeline. Asimov was born in Russia in 1920. By 1950, he's creating these sort of AI envisaging books. The other author who they categorize him as? Robert A Heinlein, of course. So Arthur C Clarke, heinlein, asimov, you know very scary science fiction that's getting closer to the truth. So any more disadvantages from you, or does that cover that?
Speaker 1:No only except to say there was a very big report done on AI in 2021 called the Appen State of AI Report, and the conclusion there was that all businesses or commercial businesses have a critical need to adopt AI or risk being left behind. Being left behind, and now, having done some experimentation with some of the AI stuff, I'm coming around to that feeling as well, actually.
Speaker 2:What does GPT stand for? Do we know that?
Speaker 1:No idea, but I do know that it is an extremely interesting website. So give me what you got. Give me what you got. The first thing I'll say about it is it is free, and that's the thing I can't quite get my head around that this service is entirely free, because if you were to pay a company to do some of the questions I'm about to tell you about, they'd charge you thousands for this kind of stuff. So that's the first thing this is a free thing.
Speaker 1:So I went on this for the first time and I asked it first of all to assess the appeal and effectiveness of our reality training website. Okay, and it did it pretty well. Now I would say that some of it was a little bit by rote, so color, visual stimulation, pictures, calls to action, all that sort of stuff. So it's assessed it on the criteria that that most of we would if we looked at a website. But it did pick out some things which we didn't have. So I thought, well, that's interesting. So then I thought I know what I'll do. I'll ask to compare our website to one of our competitors in terms of commercial appeal and lead generation capabilities. Okay, Now, that's a pretty tall order If I asked you to do that, jeremy. That would be a couple of hours of your life.
Speaker 2:Well, it would also, based on what you've already said it would have a bias. I'd go. Well, they think they're like that, you know. Yeah, I'd go. Oh, that guy, he doesn't do any work, he's a figurehead. She's semi-retired. She only works the summer holidays.
Speaker 1:Brilliant.
Speaker 2:They're owned by a massive company. I would chuck in a load of biases, even though I'd tell you I hadn't. There we are, yeah.
Speaker 1:Good point, good point.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:So then I went broader and I asked the question how could AI deliver sales training to companies? Now, there's lots of ways that AI could deliver sales training to companies, but then I asked what are the disadvantages of this? And of course, that's when it comes back to this thing we talked about earlier the idea of nuance and emotion and creativity and thinking up things on the fly and coming up with responsive language quickly and naturally. There is always going to be a gap on that. When you're using a machine, it just it doesn't have that reflexive way that the people talk currently sorted well, an ai machine doesn't have adhd no, it doesn't, but it could probably be programmed.
Speaker 1:Programmed to have it, it probably could. So then I asked it how could we adapt our site so we compare more favorably to our competitor?
Speaker 2:and it came up with some really good ideas that I hadn't thought and not that you need to say it aloud, but you can matter on the screen. You picked one competitor, did you?
Speaker 1:yes, I did someone we've lost some work to yes, okay, and I thought it was really interesting that, whilst we're very different companies, there are things that we could definitely do. That would certainly show an advantage over them if we were to do them.
Speaker 2:But I'm just wondering if AI does the comparison and makes us a bit more like them.
Speaker 1:That's a very interesting question, but my question was how do we adapt our sites so we compare more favorably To them?
Speaker 2:in the eyes of a buyer. So it's given us a couple of things that this company doesn't do, that we should do, and they don't do either Okay.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. So that was quite interesting. Then it said as a single question back to me would you like a detailed plan of how to make these changes to your site? So I said, yes, please, that's all I said yes please.
Speaker 1:So I said yes, please. That's what I said yes, please. Massive time-bound series of tasks of what we would create, do change and how quickly we can change our website. Enough marketing for months, months, really, well or less. I mean, you could just follow their timeline and in two to three weeks you've got an improved and brilliant website.
Speaker 2:Got to get people to find it. Got to get people to click. It doesn't end. Does it marketing? No, it doesn't end.
Speaker 1:It doesn't end. But you see, one of the things it suggested that we do. Rather than us do it, I could ask the chat GPT to do it for us. Do what bit? Sorry, I could get it to write something for us. Oh, I see. Now let me tell the listeners something. So at the beginning of this episode we read an introduction, a scripted introduction that I'd asked ChatGPT to create. I said we're doing this podcast all about the advantages and disadvantages of AI. I gave it a few ideas of what we were going to be doing. I gave it a few hints as to what type of people we were, and then I asked it to write the introduction, which it did. It took four seconds to write the introduction, the scripted elements. I changed about three or four bits of it to make it a bit more like things that we would be more likely to say, but that task took three minutes.
Speaker 2:So can I? I ask did it come up with those coffee jokes trying to? Make it a right? It actually thought a way to connect to us would be to make jokes about coffee beans and machines and tax returns and yeah, and all I said was it was uh, light-hearted.
Speaker 1:I said it was going to be a podcast to introduce ai in layman's terms, to people, and it took all that on board and created that. Now I don't think it's amazingly brilliant, but it's certainly a different approach.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't think we'd expect AI to be a writer, quite yet. You know, novelists, good writers, still have a place, whether they self-publish or they are represented by book houses, but I don't think people are asking AI to tell them stories yet well, I think we're not far off it, because we know that people use AI in education.
Speaker 1:We know people use it for you can write books because, especially if a factual book, if you've got a non-fiction book about a subject, I think if you put in enough information about that subject and some of the things you were looking for, I think ChatGPT will come up with something pretty damn close to what you were looking for.
Speaker 2:So, based on what you've just said about writing a factual book, martha and I last night and this is so middle class, you'll love this we made two sticky toffee puddings. Yes, as you know, now you're joking you'd love her to make you one because you're coming to stay next week. You'd love to have one before she goes. Martha and I researched websites together, some of the classic food recipe websites. Her sticky toffee pudding is off the charts. Good. I only helped a bit. She did nearly all of it because I took a call halfway. Could I get chat halfway? Could I get ChatGTP to write me a cookery book? But here's my question Would it only access recipes from books and information that's been given freely? It wouldn't be able to go into a published book that you could only buy.
Speaker 1:I can't answer that. I don't know the answer to that question. One thing I do know is, as you know, I'm trying to sell some copies of a book I've recently written and I asked chat GPT just to make sure we're clear on that how I could sell more copies of my book. It gave me a few answers that I knew, like advertising and looking at search terms and that kind of thing. But it also suggested some different routes that I could use, based on the title of the book, to promote it into websites. I'd never heard of that actually review books when they're launched and that sort of thing. I had no idea about them. So there's no doubt that it is connected. So there's no doubt that it is connected. Chat GPT is connected to every possible outlet that you could want on the internet and uses those connections and I suppose the trends and the usage of those things over years of data gathering to make that point.
Speaker 2:So your book is about walking the Camino way. Did it suggest Camino groups to send it to, or just book review sites that are generic? Or did it say these are travel books? How specific was it?
Speaker 1:It looked specifically at vloggers and social media influencers, but it also went to general book review sites to say stick it on here and you'll get the thing reviewed. And it's followed by readers. I don't even know what sites they are.
Speaker 2:You've written them down, I'll send them through. I've got them Because there's another book coming out that we'll need to do this with as well.
Speaker 1:Exactly this is the key, because what you have here, if you think about a Google search, you might need to do 20 Google searches to find the information you need to create a marketing plan for a book. Okay, I think what ChatGPT does is bring together that entire task and, in seconds, will give you, at the very least, the basis of that plan, but probably a number of very good, positive actions that you can take that will make this thing work and that is impressive.
Speaker 2:Tell you what's just gone off in my head. Hearing this is De Bono's six thinking hats might be a very good method to distill it and debate it once. Chatgpt has done a lot of the work for you.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Is that because you don't trust the information?
Speaker 2:it's going to give you no. No, it's the group of people. So I'm thinking of a company, not our company. I'm thinking of a company with a board yeah people are reluctant to allow it.
Speaker 2:It's agreed that we're going to review a project where maybe we're making a component. I don't know, chat gpt does the work and they assembled it. The human biases would come in again against it. So I'm thinking, if you said right, what do we feel emotionally about this? What's a good idea that we could build on? Okay, if we all black hat some of it straight away, what's the white hat, what's the missing information? It just might be quite a good way to disseminate. That's in a way, you're right. It's if you're not fully trusting it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is, but I think also what's interesting about that is that that's a bit like jeff bezos amazon meetings. This is your starting point from which you build, but I think what I then realized is that I can have that as my starting point and then I can go. Do you know what? If I ask it a slightly different question, it will go deeper. Yes, and if I give it another question, it's going to go even deeper. So I don't need to keep on using the starting point to do more work. I can actually keep asking the thing questions until it gives me everything that I need.
Speaker 2:Well, that's my very limited experience. I asked about my middle daughter's university choices and I asked them to compare two universities and it sort of was quite I don't think it's right to say sat on the fence, but it got me to do more work. It said well, you need to look at the lecturers.
Speaker 2:What are their papers? What's the employment prospects like? What's their alumni? Like you'll need. It actually made me go gosh. Yes, good point. How can it be so simple? If I then said who are the notable alumni of x university and who are the notable alumni of other, I could have compared the alumni, but just as you're saying that would have been me asking it to do a secondary question.
Speaker 1:So in a way informs you of the questions you've not even asked it, which is pretty amazing well, I heard a great thing the other day which was explained to me and it's similar to what we've done, but they've taken it further. So a gentleman said he asked chat gpt to assess his website against 20 competitors and to come back to him with ways that he would have an advantage over all of those competitors if he changed his offering.
Speaker 2:Okay, offering or design, or off.
Speaker 1:Actual everything. Everything you know calls to action, the whole lot. And that comes back to you and then you go, wow, now you can either look at it and go, well, no one's worried about that. But then you think, hang on a minute, what if one of those competitors has done the exact same thing and is currently changing their website to have an advantage over me at the moment? Then it becomes important. And, yes, we're at the early stages of this, but it is changing really, really quickly and the interface with it is easy, simple, so simple to use. And what I think now we and all of our listeners must challenge ourselves to do is think right, how can I make this work for my organization, for my company, for my business?
Speaker 2:Even at an early stage, just experiment. I tested something personal about university choices. I also tested about the company Just start to question it and build up ways of using it. But this has been very enlightening.
Speaker 1:Well, I think we'll leave this subject at this point and we will return to this subject, I'm sure, in future episodes, because it's going to be a movable feast in the years to come. And I'd also like to name check one other podcast which talks about this subject. It's the rest is politics leaders, and they recently interviewed nick clegg, formerly the head of the lib dems and deputy prime minister, and he was now, of course, he's a global president of facebook meta, and he talks all about this, all about ai, what the risks are and what the future is and how exciting it is, and also, interestingly, about the type of people who work in Silicon Valley on this sort of thing. And if you're interested in this subject, you could do a lot worse than listen to that excellent interview on the Rest Is Politics Leaders.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for some AI discovery. Thank you for tuning in. If this is your first listen, you'll have joined us today and thank you so much. We will be producing more. If you've already been a listener to Bob and Jeremy's Conf Lab, you'll have noticed we've become the reality of business and nothing changes. We are your hosts. We just thought it was a more reflective name than what we had previously. So thank you ever so much, bobby. We'll be back with you soon with a new episode okay, take care.